Paris
by switchonlights
Summary: One-Shot: Taking a break from plotting against Trask, Erik goes out into the city and meets a mutant with a story very different from his own.


It was the kind of place common to Paris: half-cafe, half-bar, crammed with baskets of crisps and half-empty glasses of house wine. Smoke from burnt out cigarettes refracted the light emitting from stained-glass light fixtures swinging perilously from the ceiling. People talked softly - if they spoke at all; they did not raise their voices for fear of eliminating the Parisian enigma comprised of dark clothing and loudly square high-heels. Erik sat on the vinyl barstool, twirling in his hands the last member of a set of bulky crystal glasses, graced with the last hints of a drink. He reflected the Parisian charm, silent and alone as - to the passerby's view - he contemplated the meaning of urban solitude, or waited for a lover to join him, but in fact his only thought was gratitude that there was no newspaper nearby - he did not wish to see again the events of the day, of the "mutant attack" at the hotel.

A woman sat several seats away from him, dressed in dark colors as Parisian women are wont to be. Butterscotch hair fell lazily from a bun, curling at the nape of her neck. The high planes of her face were tilted down towards her glass, a smoother version of Erik's, filled with the remains ice melting into vodka. Erik stared at her lazily, eyes traveling from her ankle boots up her slim jeans to her leather jacket, which was conspicuously laking in the wide lapels so popular on every other woman in the cafe.

"What you are thinking," she said softly, her French singing slightly. "is not very polite."

"I was thinking that you could use another drink."

"Not French?" she asked in English. "Well, in that case-" she looked up at him, eyes twinkling "-yes, I could."

He slid down to sit on the stool next to her. "We are the only two here alone, we should stick together."

She considered him carefully. "You look very oddly similar to one of my friends. What is your name?"

"Erik."

"He is not related to anyone called Erik," she muses, with a full-bodied shrug. "I am Amelie." He takes the hand she sticks out.

"Lovely to meet you, Amelie."

"May I ask you a question?" She asked, watching him gesture to the bartender for new drinks. He nodded. "You are a mutant, no?"

Cooly, he picked up his glass, swirling it again. "Why do you ask?"

"Because I am lonely." She cocked her head, eyes perfectly innocent of any malevolence, hinting at a sort of dull boredom, and suggesting she was full of ways to erase that boredom. Glancing around to make sure no one is watching, he gestured subtly at a fork lying on the counter. The tines curled up, one by one.

She nodded, sipping at her drink. "Telekinesis?"

"Metal." he waited for her to say something about the hotel, but she didn't, just considered the fork.

"My friend you look like," she said finally. "I am worried he finds out about me."

"He sounds like more than a friend."

A smirk lifts her lips. "Sadly, no. Would you like to see what I do?"

"I welcome any distraction."

"Well, I am very good at that," she winked.

At her suggestion, they head onto the street and stand on the sidewalk amidst the evening strollers. The sun was just setting, casting the streets into dark shadow in the moments before the lamps came on. Mopeds, cars, and bikes ran up and down, intertwining at crosswalks with people walking quickly in a hundred different directions.

"It is safer for us to be out here," she said, glancing around. "Backwards, or forwards?"

"You don't mean- backwards."

"I've already come backwards, so I don't suppose there's a difference in going a little further," she looked deadly serious, eyebrows knitted in concentration. "Take my hand." He did. It was cool, slightly damp from her glass. "If you let go of my hand, we are - I can never remember the work in English."

"Fucked," he supplied dryly.

"That is the one."

He watched as she reached up with her free hand and began plucking at the air as if an invisible harp hovered there. To his surprise, threads became visible just around her hand, swirling and flowing in all different colors. Muttering to herself in French, she took one and tugged, easing it out of the flow until it was long enough to wrap around their intertwined hands.

"It is time," she explained unnecessarily. He looked up from their hands to meet her eyes, trying - very unsuccessfully - to hide how stunned he was. "This next part is not so pleasant, so I will make it better." She had to shift slightly to her toes to kiss him. Her mouth tasted bitter, like vodka and limes, but he leaned into it, ignoring the bit of the world that had started spinning, and the heat of the thread twined round their hands. He closed his eyes, so he could not see the world melting like some post-modern piece hanging on the wall of the Louvre. Kissing a time traveler had not been on his list when he had entered the bar, he had simply wanted a drink and a break from reading Trasks' plans, but it was not entirely unwelcome.

"Not so bad, no?" she disentangled herself from him, keeping their hands tightly together. "I learned that trick the first time I took someone back."

The scene around them had dramatically changed. The cafe was still there, crowded with lunchtime customers, but the cars rumbling up the street were longer, blockier, as were the fashions. Men wore hats, and women unshaped dresses falling just to the knee. Hair cuts were short, like the heels, and beads were long.

"Is this real, or are you screwing with my mind?" he asked, none-to kindly.

She smiled. "I was born in nineteen eighty-two. I live in two thousand fourteen. I assure you, it's real."

"Well," he muttered, head spinning. "Your clothes certainly make more sense now. May I ask you something?"

"Yes."

"How do they treat us, in two thousand fourteen?"

"Like they have always treated us," she shrugs. "But minorities must suffer through oppression until the majority see folly, and rise up with them."

"Wouldn't you rather me secure your freedom, _now? _Wouldn't you rather be free when you are born?"

"I do not care for such talk," Amelie says, looking around. "I told you, I am bored, time travel does not fix that. You are tense. There is an easy solution to this."

She had been there before, and knew a room above a nearby cafe. It is not necessarily clean, and is filled with alcohol waiting to be illegally shipped to America.

Erik pushes Amelie against wall of crates, pinning her with his body. His mouth is demanding, taking and biting. He is angry and afraid but he only kisses like the former. She did not shy away, but smiled against him.

"It is not good to be so angry," she murmured. "It is what they want, for us to be angry. But here we are, in the 1924, and why should we be angry about that?" Instead of answering, he used the hand not in hers to intwine in her hair and pull back her head, kissing violently down her neck.

"This is pointless," he grouches. "if I can't touch you."

She laughed. "You just have to work with one hand less. It is not impossible, just a challenge." As if to demonstrate, she made good use of her free hand, unbuttoning his pants and reaching a hand down the front. He groaned deeply into her mouth and pushed his hips towards her.

"They want us to be angry," Amelie murmured, working softly with her hand, "but they cannot make me angry."

"I want," he growls. "to fuck you." Shoving her pants down around her knees, he does just that. Her cries as she comes made it clear that time travel had never been put to a better use.

Erik doesn't let go of her hand, even once they are back in his own time. There is something contagious about her.

"You would be invaluable," he told Amelie, looking down at her. "Fight with us."

She smiled sadly. "Violence is the answer only once you are supported by all but a few, and only if all else has failed. I will deal with things in my own way, in my own time." Shifting to her toes once more, she kissed his cheek softly. He watched dully as she untied the string of time from her wrist, and she vanished like she wasn't even there.

He did not take these words to heart, just grew - as he stared at the blank piece of cement - angrier and angrier. Only the bitter taste of experience can teach wisdom.

* * *

_Erik stands on a busy Paris corner, looking around. It has been years since he was in the city, years since the attempted assassination of Nixon's cabinet. He has done nothing of note since then, contacted Charles only a little. He is old, and wanting a home. _

_ "Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters," a voice said. "It is in America. New York." _

_ Erik turns at the name. A young woman is leaning against the streetlamp, smoking a cigarette and chatting with a man. _

_ "What am I supposed to do, Amelie?" his face is rectangular, his strong jaw covered by a close-cropped ginger beard. He runs a hand over his short hair. Erik starts at his face; it is like a mirror to the past._

_ "Come with me! This is the opportunity of a lifetime! Teaching people _like _me!" _

_ "No one is like you," the man mutters, plucking the cigarette from her. "You are uniquely irritating." _

_ "Andre." Amelie sighs and pulls him close; they kiss almost indecently. "Come with me." _

_ "No more than a friend, huh?" Erik laughs. He does not mean to say the words aloud, but Amelie turns her head. _

_ "I am sorry, do I-" she freezes, and smiles. "Ah. Hello again." _

_ "Hello. You are going to teach with Charles?" _

_ "Yes, I am." she is still holding Andre's collar, looking rather shocked. The youth are thoughtless of aging. _

_ Erik nods slowly. "Give him my regards." The walk symbol flashes across the road and he walks onto the crosswalk, leaving her to draw her lover back down to her mouth and share the slow, smoky kisses of Paris. _


End file.
